Mandarin-Gold Read online

  Canton was crowded with sampans; house-boats and junks were moored in mid-stream, packed with men and women and children. On one, half a dozen people in rags came out to watch them row by. 0r»e threw a bucket of faeces and orange peel into the water after them. A naked child of five or six stood on a box and slowly raised her. right clenched fist, as though lifting a severed head by its hair. She drew her other hand beneath it in a horizontal cutting motion, as if slitting a throat, and then everyone shouted in English, in a chorus obviously learned by rote, 'Foreign devils! Demons! Red Bristled Barbarians!'

  "They don't think much of us,' said Griggs. 'Never mind. They sell the strongest drink in the world in Canton. We'll be lucky if we get half our fellows back tonight to row us.'

  'What happens to those left behind?'

  'If they're on their own, they'll probably be robbed, and left in the gutter. If they're in a crowd and put up a fight, then they should escape. Either way, there will be some sore heads in the morning!'

  Moored close to the shore, Gunn saw several long house-boats with gilded roofs and painted decks, their roofs heavy with flowers in terra cotta pots. On balconies reached by carved staircases and shielded by ornate bannisters, young women sat dressed in purple silk, strings of bright jewellery, round their necks. Some stood up and tip-toed to the edge of the craft to wave to the new arrivals.

  Gunn saw with horror that their feet were bound so tightly, their toes curved beneath them like claws, so that they were barely the size of a child's clenched fist. The girls could only totter or toddle. It was quite impossible for them to run, and difficult enough to walk.

  'They do that here, from birth,' explained Griggs. 'It's a mark .of class. Only peasants walk well.'

  'It's a terrible custom.'

  'No worse than stays and tight lacing.'

  '.Who are these girls, anyway?'

  'Whores. But don't pay 'em a visit. They all have ponces or protectors aboard and they will kill you for your wallet.'

  They were running in now between sampans and barbers' boats, others selling toys and burning charcoal, towards wooden piers, bearded with seaweed. The crew shipped oars, and pulled their way along by boathooks on to other craft already moored.

  On land, the noise after the gurgling of the river was suddenly intense. Gongs boomed; firecrackers whirled; men carrying trays of melons shouted their wares. Servants, pushing their employers in wheelbarrows, screamed hoarsely for others to make way, and a band marched along the quay, leading a funeral procession. Gunn knew that the noise was to drive off demons and devils; the louder the bangs, the more frightened such devils became.

  The longboat bumped against the wooden piles, the sailors made her fast, and Gunn and Griggs climbed up an iron-runged ladder. After the slow rolling of the Trelawney, the earth seemed to heave beneath Gunn's feet: He stood still to steady himself, eyes narrowed against the burning brilliance of the day. Hundreds of people were milling about. At various points, raised high on lattice scaffolds of bamboo, stood little bamboo watchtowers. Each contained a policeman watching for fires or any other disturbances.

  Canton was divided into areas separated after dark with locked gates guarded by watchmen who beat a tom-tom every hour to mark the passing of the night. By dividing the city in this way the authorities believed that robbery or insurrection could be localized.

  Gunn had heard that each area held one citizen responsible for the good conduct of all the residents. This man sub-divided his responsibility to other individuals in each street who became responsible for the good behaviour of their neighbours. Because they knew they would be punished if no other culprit were apprehended, these headmen invariably discovered the guilty men—and so saved the police (and themselves) a great deal of trouble.

  At the far end of the quay, three-quarters of a mile away, he could see the Union Jack, then the Dutch and French flags, and the American Stars and Stripes.

  'They're the factories,' Griggs explained. Their pillars and porticoes faced a garden known as the English Garden, which, in turn, ended in Jackass Point and the river. Between these factories ran three narrow alleys, Hog Lane, Old China Street and New China Street, all leading to a wider road behind them. This was called, from the number of foreign factories that had originally traded, Thirteen Factories Street.

  In the past, Swedish, Spanish, Austrian, Danish and other companies had been represented in Canton, but they had gradually withdrawn, although the names of their companies were still engraved on the buildings. All had three stories; the ground floor given over to counting-rooms, vast store-rooms, and a treasury built of granite, with iron doors, for Canton possessed no banks that would do business with Barbarians.

  The first floor contained sitting-rooms and dining-rooms; the bedrooms were on the third.

  Opposite their landing place stood a factory narrower than the rest, on the edge of a scummy stagnant river, fouled with bloated bodies of dogs, pigs, and branches of dead trees. Children squatted in the yellow mud, defecating amid crowds of blue flies. Above the front door, in. black raised letters, were the words: Creek Factory.

  'That's privately owned,' Griggs explained. 'By two of our countrymen. One, William Jardine, is a doctor, like you. Used to be a ship's surgeon, too. The other is James Matheson, the son of a Scots baronet. They're probably the richest European merchants out here. They trade as Jardine and Matheson.'

  'What do they trade in? Tea?'

  'Yes. And lots of other things. But they probably make more out of opium than all the rest put together.'

  'A doctor,' said Gunn musingly. 'I must meet him.'

  Maybe Jardine had also yearned for wealth, and had been goaded to prove himself in a way his fellow men would be forced to admit and admire?

  'He doesn't practise now,' Griggs added. 'Doesn't need to, of course. You'd probably meet him if you were staying here.'

  'Pity I'm not.'

  'I don't think so. Couldn't stand this place myself. Give me the sea. Something clean about that. These factories are like monasteries. They've hardly any windows, and no women are allowed whatever. Then the Chinese have a guard-house on the corner of Old China Street, either to see we all behave ourselves, or to protect us from the locals who can't bear the sight of Foreign Devils. Or maybe for both reasons.

  'Anyhow, each year, as soon as the trading season is over, they insist that all foreigners move to Macao—the island the Portuguese have owned for two hundred years in the mouth of the river.

  'The Chinese Emperor fears that if we're allowed to stay here for twelve months in the year then we'll all gradually acquire more space, more land, and more concessions. Which he's no intention of giving in case we take over the whole country, as we've done in India and Burma. So he only allows foreigners about three hundred yards frontage for all their factories, and a depth of four hundred. And this in a country with more inhabitants than, any other in the .world, and a potential trade that is staggering!

  'So far as the merchants are concerned, they feel like men dying of thirst on the edge of a locked reservoir. They are more concerned about the fortunes they're not making than the ones they are.'

  'Then why don't they come to some better arrangement?'

  'The mandarins are afraid to. They have a strictly ordered society here—-more so than with us. The mandarins treat, the peasants like dirt, and the peasants don't object, because they don't know anything else. Now if you allow all kinds of Europeans in, and the peasants hear how well labourers live in the West, then they'll demand more for themselves. And that would mean less for the mandarins and the Emperor.'

  At the edge of the quay, half a dozen Chinese, naked except for blue drawers, had looped a rope around the bloated carcase of a pig floating in the river. Very carefully, for the rope was old, they began to haul it up, faces beaming.

  'They'll have that for dinner tonight,' said Griggs, and spat into the sea. 'But don't let it put you off your food,'

  'I won't. But I'll be damned careful what I eat.
'

  The smell of spice, overlaid with scents of tea and spices and the salty stench of the river, was suddenly overpoweringly strong. He turned away in case he was sick.

  Griggs called to the men.

  'Liberty boat will return to Trelawney at' nine .o'clock tonight. Anyone not here will be left behind. Any of you lot ever landed here before?'

  'Yes, sir,' called a young man with a fresh country face.

  'Well, you know the place, but to the others I'll give you this advice. Keep off those flower boats. You'll only catch the pox, and more than likely you'll also lose your wallets. With your money, you'll be worth a year's income to them.

  'And if you must go in the grog shops, keep near the door. Otherwise, if there's a fight, you'll be dragged out the back way. Last voyage, we lost two men like that. Never saw 'em again. Any questions?'

  'No, sir.'

  'Well, see you at nine o'clock. Here.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  They went off, followed by a crowd of children, hands out for coins, and old beggars with swollen legs and bloated trunks, propelling themselves along painfully on wooden trolleys.

  A handful of Englishmen in light trousers, black jackets and black stove-pipe hats walked down from the factories along the quay. Behind came a retinue of servants; small tough men, heads entirely shaved except on the crowns from which sprouted strong thick black hair, fibrous as a horse's tail, and plaited in a pigtail to their waists. Some wore cone-shaped rattan hats against the heat, but most were bareheaded, wearing nothing but cotton drawers. Already, junks were unloading bales of cargo on the hard, trodden earth of the quay. Chinese supervisors marked off each item on scrolls of paper. Servants held umbrellas over them to shield them from the sun.

  Gunn saw one supervisor beckon to a servant and incline his head briefly. The servant produced a small square of paper from a. pouch, and held it up to the supervisor's nose. He blew into it. The servant folded it up and threw it away. Then the servant began to feel in his master's clothes for nits and lice. He held up an insect triumphantly. The supervisor put it in his mouth, ground it between his teeth and swallowed it; the unloading continued.

  On all sides, women and. children were scrambling about on hands and knees for scraps of grain that burst from a loose bag. Several boys dived into the filthy water to rescue crusts and apple peelings. Yet they all looked bland and cheerful. They might be poor beyond anything Gunn had ever imagined, but, incredibly, poverty did not mark their character. They laughed and joked and shouted at each other in high spirits.

  'No point in hanging about here, with just these slit-eyed swine to look at,' said Griggs, wrinkling his nose. 'Let us have a drink. Pity it's not allowed to go into Canton.'

  'Anyone ever tried it?'

  'Lots. But they've always been brought back. So they concentrate on getting drunk here.'

  'On what?'

  'Mixtures. Served in the gin shops. Old Jemmy Apoo. Tom Bowline. Old Sam's Brother. Jolly Jack. You can see their signs written up in English, as well as Chinee characters. Each sells his own speciality. Some of their drinks are so strong we've had men go blind or mad, or just stay drunk for days—and no wonder.

  'What they call their first chop rum number one curio is about a pint of neat rum, with aphrodisiacs, alcohol, tobacco juice, sugar and a touch of arsenic to give it colour and tang.'

  'And you are suggesting we drink here?' asked Gunn with a grin.

  'Look behind you,' Griggs said sharply, ignoring his question. 'There's a mandarin coming past. Get back to the side of the road. Quickly. He's the Hoppo.'

  Gunn turned, surprised at the urgency of Grigg's voice, and shaded his eyes against the blazing sun. A dozen servants carried a palanquin on long gilded poles through the crowd. Their bodies were bent double by the weight, for the mandarin was not a slim man. Giant moths, flies and mosquitoes fluttered and buzzed about their sweating flesh as they trudged in step to the beating of a brass gong.

  Ahead of them, on either side, walked lictors with long moustaches, wielding leather whips and staves at everyone in their path to force them down on their knees.'

  The Hoppo was plump and squat, his face impassive as a bladder of lard; mouth small and pursed, eyes dark slits in shining skin. His hands were folded in front of his paunch, and his fingernails, an inch long, were especially sharpened to show that he never condescended to physical labour.

  He wore a heavily embroidered gown of purple and gold with the design of a quail worked on its back and front. On his head he had a round hat, like an inverted plate, with a gold button on the top.

  'That's one of the high ranks,' whispered Griggs. 'The only one better is a prince of the blood. The lowest mandarins wear a crane embroidered on their coat and a red button in their caps. This fellow has bought his way up, of course. Not born to it.'

  Gunn was fascinated by the instant attitudes of respect that the Hoppo's approach had caused. Shopkeepers were flinging themselves down on the filthy road, faces pressed eagerly into the dirt. Others already on their knees turned away, as though the passage of such privilege was too much for their eyes to bear.

  'How rich is he?' he asked.

  'Impossible to say. But his predecessor amassed one of the largest commercial fortunes in the world. His gold was not just a button in his hat! He had the equivalent of ten million pounds sterling.'

  'But how could he have done, out here?'

  'By applying himself to all the opportunities of his post, that's how. Remember, doctor, he takes a cut on every item that comes ashore from the ships and every item that goes back on board. Even drinking water. Of, course, he makes most out of opium. Turning a Nelson eye to a trade he should be stamping out.'

  'And he achieved this fortune in three years?'

  'Yes. And this fellow will make more, for the opium trade's increasing.'

  'But I can't understand it. He's only a Chinese.'

  'Only is hardly the word I would use, doctor, especially round here. Some, of these fellows know more English than they admit. The Hoppo is the most important man in the East. And everyone in these factories—the Americans, Parsees, Russians, Austrians and ourselves included—would do almost anything rather than offend him.

  'You really have no conception how absolute this man's power is. Some years ago, a British ship, the Lady Hughes, fired a gun in salute on some Chinese holiday—and the shot accidentally, killed a Chinese boatman noone had seen.

  'At once, the Hoppo threatened to stop all trade with every Western country unless the British sailor who had fired the shot was delivered over to them. So he was. The Chinese gave him a secret trial, and sentenced him. The poor devil was ceremoniously strangled by an iron chain—and all through an accident.

  'Odd for an Empire as strong as ours to submit to that blackmail, eh? But so much money is involved— and the hope of millions, more if only we can extend trade throughout the country with an ambassador in Peking, and the use of other ports—that we tolerate all kinds of indignities rather than jeopardize our chances.'

  'Maybe,' replied Gunn, grimly. 'But I'm still not going down on my knees for anyone, except to pray to God.'

  'As you wish,' said Griggs, 'but at least, salute. It's a matter of courtesy, remember. You'd do the same for the Lord Mayor of London if he passed.'

  Reluctantly, Gunn's right hand went up to his cap and down again. The Hoppo turned and looked at him. He gave no indication that he had seen the salute; his eyes did not widen and no shadow of feeling or interest crossed his face, which was impassive as a painted mask. All the same, Gunn felt a strange shiver in his spine, as though dead hands had touched him. It seemed—quite absurdly, of course—that the mandarin had looked at him closely because he wished to recognize him again. But—why? Or was he imagining the incident?

  The procession passed by, the shopkeepers stood up, and returned to their booths and stalls.

  'What do we do now?' Gunn asked. To have set foot in the world's most remote and secret country, and
then just to stand bowing—kowtowing, as the Chinese said—to some native merchant, seemed an absurd anti-climax. He yearned for excitement to purge from his mind the memory of Marion and his father's letter. He could imagine the shopkeeper's pale hands about her body, exploring secrets he had never known, for he was innocent of such things, imprisoned by his own strict upbringing. He shook his head sharply to rid himself of these torturing images.

  'That drink,' said Griggs, watching hjm closely. 'First drink ashore is always the best. Like the first girl.'

  'But you've just said they'd offer us arsenic'

  ‘That's only for sailors. They'll drink anything. I'll take you where they serve Chinese wine and food you can trust—not old pig pulled out of the river!'

  They walked up a narrow alley off Hog Lane, where singing birds jumped frantically in tiny bamboo cages, and into a wooden building. A gilded dragon breathed painted fire above the doorway. A screen hung in the opening, with space to pass on either side.

  'That's to keep the demons out,' Griggs explained 'The Chinese believe demons can only go forward and back, like the shuttle on a loom. They can't slip round the side like the rest of us.'

  Scrubbed wooden tables with benches were set out inside. In the far corner, Chinese women in shapeless black trousers and blouses sat smoking clay pipes and chattering together. They did not even turn to look at them. A roly-poly Chinese man, his huge paunch held in by a red sash with tassels, bowed to them. His feet flickered like mice under his robe, so that he appeared to glide rather than walk.

  'Chop, chop. Fetchee good number one wine, all clean cup. Number one nice chow, heap big fellow - prawns. Quicklee running,' said Griggs, and then turning to Gunn he added proudly: 'It helps to speak their lingo.

  'Of course,' he admitted, 'that's only pidgin. When we first started trading here, years ago, the Chinks couldn't pronounce the word "business." They called it "pidginess." So since then this cudd lingo we talk when we're discussing business with them has been called pidgin.'